Calendar and chronology, Jewish and Christian

This book deals with various challenging problems in Jewish and early Christian thought and practice, within the general areas of the calendar and chronology. New problems are tackled, and old problems are reconsidered. The new problems are intertestamental, and include the Qumran calendar, the stages in the development of Judaism between the Testaments, and the various chronologies used in early Judaism to measure past and future time. These chapters are mainly of Jewish interest, though the last-mentioned has a Christian bearing also, centering as it does on messianic expectation. The old problems all have a Christian bearing, and are biblical or patristic, though illustrated here by intertestamental evidence. They include the relationship between the Sabbath and Sunday, the date of the crucifixion, the origin of Easter and Whitsun, and the date of Christmas.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.